Nostalgia, bucket lists, and many more senior moments

By Mariesa Kubasek

I'm not usually one for clichés, and so I was surprised to find myself suggesting to my friends that we create a bucket list of sorts.

Normally, the term "bucket list" would make me cringe. I'm also not one for overly sentimental, saccharine things.

But there I was, in my friends' kitchen, requesting a pen and paper to write down all of the tasks we needed to accomplish to round out our experiences here at Santa Clara.

The Mystery Spot made the cut, as did wine tasting in Sonoma and general debauchery in San Francisco (is there any other way to enjoy the City?).

And that's when I knew that the nostalgia had set in, had wrapped its tendrils around me. Perhaps this was premature.  And incorrect. A bucket list was all about doing new things, seeing new places!

But I had the sense that this might be a facade. And as I was being propelled toward an ambiguous future, I found the pull of nostalgia comforting.

"Come here, stay a while," it seemed to say to me. "Look at the roses. Sure, they're assailing your sinuses now.

But you'll miss them in a few years when you're in that grey cubicle. Remember the time when…"

It's an odd feeling, to feel trapped between what is to be, and what has been. It makes one contemplative, strangely self-aware.

You have the sensation of being both an observer and a participant in what occurs, both anthropologist and bonobo monkey.

In one of our more "senior moments," as my friend and I stood on her porch and sipped our obscenely cheap beer, we reflected on a favorite topic of ours: relationships.

We recounted to each other stories that we had already heard, that we could recite back to each other perfectly.

Our experiences ran the gamut, from fleeting and almost ephemeral hook-ups to real and almost painful love.

We reveled in our nostalgia, sank deeply into the "what has been." But now, it wasn't a dulling escape from the sharp reality.

No, instead it became a hunt for answers that would hopefully contribute to that future into which we were being pushed.

Why hadn't this particular relationship lasted?

Why did this other man disappear?

What did he mean by that? And in asking these questions, we struck against something. An underlying factor in so many relationships gone awry, in so many missed opportunities was time.

Time was the inspiration for me to write up a bucket list. I was running out of it, and so I needed to take advantage of all that the school and the Bay Area had to offer me.

But time was the reason that I and my friend and so many others had shied away from igniting any new friendship or romantic relationship.

Why become involved in something that you'd have to be ripped away from?

Why risk the vulnerability and pain and hurt?

Why put effort into a relationship that has such an obvious time restraint on it?

No, better to hide behind time, and nostalgia, and the pretty roses that you won't see again.

"We should branch out, invite new people to our parties,"

I suggested once. This idea was outright dismissed.

"We should make a bucket list," I mused.

This idea was immediately welcomed.

The list, really, wasn't about doing new things. It was about being together, as much as possible, swimming in our nostalgia.

Which wasn't a bad thing. Not until, though, these recollections became more than just an intellectual comfort.

Instead, they converted from a benign and mild form of denial into a tall and fortified barrier, a defense against the new.

We hung the list on my friend's fridge. But when I looked at it, I didn't think about the potential bonfires in Santa Cruz or cheesy tours of the Winchester Mystery House.

Instead, I thought of other possibilities. I thought of all the people that I could have met, all the people to whom I could have said yes, I'd love to eat lunch with you. I'm not one for clichés, and saccharine things.

But I'm also not one for regret. So as I stared at the infernal list, I thought of all the people I would still meet. And all the people to whom I would now say yes, time be damned.

Mariesa Kubasek is a senior philosophy and political science double major.